In most modern financial systems, and particularly in the western world, an individual's credit rating is fast becoming one of the most important assets in the individual's procession. Consequently, monitoring and tracking of credit accounts and credit ratings, as well as preventing credit related crimes, such as identity (ID) theft, is a significant concern for most consumers.
In an effort to help consumers keep track of their credit activity, recent legislation in the United States requires the major credit reporting agencies to provide each consumer one free copy of their credit report each year. Currently, this free credit report can be obtained through the website https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp.
The legislated free annual credit report provides consumers with an annual, or more often than annually for a fee, opportunity to check their listed credit accounts and ensure that the credit report includes no incorrect or illegitimate credit activity and that the consumer's various credit accounts have not been subject to ID theft/fraud activity. A typical credit report can be quite lengthy for an average consumer and, in some cases, confusing, intimidating and difficult to decipher. Currently, in order to check the accuracy of a credit report, a consumer must first obtain the credit report, usually a hard copy, and then, line by line, entry by entry, compare, typically visually, the credit report against known, credit accounts, often located in one or more other websites and/or locations. Each credit account entry must then be confirmed more or less manually.
Many consumers also monitor, track, manipulate and maintain various credit accounts using one or more computing system implemented financial management systems. Currently, various computing system implemented financial management systems are available including: computing system implemented personal and small business financial management systems; computing system implemented tax preparation systems; computing system implemented business accounting systems; and computing system implemented medical expense management systems; as well as various other electronic transaction data driven financial management systems.
Computing system implemented financial management systems help users manage their finances, including credit accounts, by providing a centralized interface with banks, credit card companies, and other various financial institutions, for electronically identifying and categorizing user financial transactions. Currently, computing system implemented financial management systems typically obtain electronic transaction based information, such as payee, payment amount, date, etc. via communication with banks, credit card providers, or other financial institutions, using electronic data transfer systems such as the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) specification, Web Direct, or various systems for transferring financial transaction data.
Currently, Computing system implemented financial management systems do not provide for interfacing with, or manipulating data presented in, a typically credit report, such as the freely provided annual credit reports discussed above.